Pack Mule
by Zerafall
Summary: Jaune's experiences with his family while living on the Grimm-infested Valean frontier has shown him that every once and a while a person's luggage can be too much, that sometimes a person just needs a pack mule to make their journey easier.
1. Origins of a Pack Mule

Living out on the frontier of good old Grimm-infested Remnant was a tough life.

He had to go through hard work every single day to tend to his family's farmlands. Anything to ease the load off his family's backs.

He had to be there for his sisters when they needed their brother: had to be there to be a shoulder to cry on, a lap to rest on, or a friend to laugh with when no else would or could.

He had to be dependable.

He had to be there for his parents when the work got too much for them.

Had to be there for his father when the monster slaying was finished; when the memories of lost friends, ghoulish faces that _gnawed and bit and chewedandgnarledclawedandtoreandravaged-_

Had to be there when the nightmares got too much for the grizzled Huntsman.

Had to be there with his old man's favorite brand of beer that he walked hours to the nearest Valean settlement for; offering him a chance to relax and crack a cold one with his son.

Had to be there to ease an old hunting dog's heart with the warmth of his championship and the power of his smile.

Had to be there for his mother when the stress of taking care of a family of ten got too much for the weather-bitten matriarch of the Arc family.

Had to be there to show hi-no _their_ appreciation and adoration and love and a million other things that she was worthy of when the stress grabbed her and twisted her into a bitter old _tired_ woman that felt like she was taking on the weight of millions.

Had to be there to talk about the latest episode the drama shows they watch with rest of the family; to laugh and banter: to take their minds of the fact that the world was burning.

To remember that the flames would never take them if they stuck together.

He had to be considerate.

He had to learn to comfort them, to take their burdens as his.

He had to learn: to make their hellish days into less hellish days, to turn their good days into great days , to turn their great days into the best days.

Had to learn to convey that even though things looked bleak, he was there for them, every step of the way on this crappy misery-infested path.

That their luggage was _his._

That you didn't have to bear all of your burdens alone if you had someone walking alongside you.

That the weight of the world wouldn't crush if you had a pack mule to help you carry some of it.

 **AN**

 **Huh, this fic was supposed to be an angsty fic where after the events of the Vol. 3 finale Jaune laments his family's murder and Phyrra's death and how much he's lost...**

 **I had the plot set out and everything, I wrote the beginning as something heartwarming and then I would follow up with a line of something like 'They got killed by Grimm' or some crap and give Jaune crippling depression, then he joins Beacon to avenge his family or some shtick, things follow Canon, then Phyrra's death opens wounds thought long since healed.**

 **But then this fluffy heartwarming** ** _garbage_** **stuck itself into my head.**

 **The premise is that after the events of Vol. 3 Jaune gives: Ren, Nora, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang a shoulder to cry on and a -** ** _waitforit-_** **pack mule to help carry their emotional luggage, because let's admit it, those guys are pretty depressed, the thing is Jaune is** ** _also_** **depressed so yeah, it's fun.**

 **Got any critiques on my stinking pile of refuse I call writing? Love it? Hate it?**

 **Be sure to show me by smashing that [** ** _REDACTED_** **] Like butto-**

 **Erm, I meant leaving a review.**


	2. Jaune

Everything is blue.

Or rather: it's red and gold, with a dash of green, a polite smile, and with an unwaveringly supportive hand on his shoulder; with soft, cherry-sprinkled lips pressing gently against his own.

He closes his eyes.

Why...just... _why..._

Nothing is alright.

Beacon is rubble; and Pyrrha, his stupid, courageous partner -his pillar- is ash in the wind.

He lets out a choked sob, muffled for the sake of his two remaining teammates, sleeping in each other's arms in the adjacent bed, comforting each other.

He wishes he had Pyrrha here to comfort him like that.

A tear drop falls to the floor. He can barely even control himself anymore. How pathetic.

He stands up from his perch on the bed, and exits the room. Taking extra care to close the door with the least amount of sound as possible.

He breaks down as soon as the door clicks shut.

He hates everything. He hates the woman who killed her. He hates Pyrrha for disobeying his orders and dying for nothing, for leaving him with a kiss that would doom him, and a shove that would doom her. He hates Ozpin for involving her in something that got her killed. He hates Weiss and Ruby for not being fast enough to save her.

But he hates himself most of all.

He's weak. He knows that, he thinks as he grits his teeth hard enough to hurt his gums.

If he was truly strong then she would be right here beside him. Laughing and smiling and _alive._

What ifs, oh how he hated them, they never failed to depress him.

He closes his eyes.

He doesn't know what to do.

He's lost and hurt and afraid. They all are.

He's no stranger to grief. Childhood friends, good, real ones that he laughed and played with had been taken away from him by the Grimm. Frontier towns didn't have the same kind of safety nets as the kingdoms.

Once upon a time, he even had a childhood sweetheart. A pretty girl he played with regularly, he had really liked her. Black hair and green- he winced- eyes.

She had been torn apart by an errant Beowulf that had somehow managed to give the Wall sentries the slip, at the age of ten. It was what had cemented his decision to be a Huntsman; he had wanted to be strong enough to protect his loved ones.

He snorts a hopeless, bitter, broken sound that was more an attempt to feel an emotion than an expression of amusement. The attempt didn't work.

This grief was different, though, stronger. She wasn't just a friend. She was his partner- no, she was more than that; the tingling in his lips seemed to say.

His chest ached, imagining what could've been, what _should've been._

She was his responsibility, just like he was hers.

But he had failed, he laments with another broken chuckle. He had failed her.

But he won't fail them.

Ren. Nora. Ruby. Weiss. Blake. Yang.

He's not okay, hell he's the exact opposite of okay, he's hurting so much that it's ridiculous.

But he'll overcome this, he knows that much. And if he learned anything living in a family of ten, in a town on the frontier of a broken and bloodied world; it was that sharing the grief was better than shouldering it alone.

Unbidden they came, images of him helping his family, of his family helping him. The memories give him a sort of strength

He stands, not exactly tall, but tall enough. His eyes crack open, with not exactly resolve, but it was good enough. It had to be.

He wipes the tears from his face, determination casting an almost visible halo.

He turns around and goes back into the room.

He won't leave his friends to grieve alone. He swears it.


	3. Ren

Ren is sitting at his and Nora's shared bed, not doing anything in particular. Nora is out to buy some more ammunition for their weapons. He's worried about her. Too-loud laughs, too-bright eyes. Fake. Fake. Fake. His mind flashes back to earlier days. To a much smaller and much less confident and much less alive Nora. He doesn't want things to turn that way again.

"Ren," he hears someone say, and he almost jumps. Disgraceful, he was usually much better about keeping track of his surroundings; yet another sign of how much Pyrrha's death is affecting him.

He turns to the person who had called his name, finding it to be Jaune.

"Jaune?" He inquires, raising a brow; wondering what the blonde wanted. Jaune had not spoken much since Beacon's fall, preferring to stare at nothing at all, not that he could blame him. He is doing the same, after all.

Yet something is different about the knight, he seems more resolute, stronger. There are still signs of grief on his face and his posture, but he does not look as depressed as before. Ren wonders about his change. He couldn't have gotten over his this fast. Remnant is cruel and unforgiving, but still...

"Can we talk?" Jaune asks. Ren nods. His leader then sits on his bed, next to him, and places a hand on his shoulder as a gesture of support.

"How are you holding up?" Jaune asks. Ah, his leader was checking up on him then. Admirable, especially with how grief-stricken he is. Ren admires the actions that his leader is taking to make sure that he's alright, but he's also slightly bitter. This shouldn't have happened in the first place. Beacon was supposed to be better than the wilds. Beacon was supposed to be safe.

"I'm doing fine, or at least, as fine as I could be. Given the circumstances," Ren says in a carefully measured tone of voice. He had always been well-versed in the art of subtlety, at deceiving. Pyrrha - while not as close to him as Nora and Jaune - was a friend he held dear to him, but he considers it pretentious to pour out his grief to someone who was bound to have much larger grievances.

Judging by Jaune's frown. It is clear that he does not agree with Ren. Feh, how stubborn.

"How are you _really_ feeling?" He asks again, this time expecting an honest answer. What does he expect Ren to say? Annoyance surges through him for a second, almost overwhelms him; he tightly bounds it under layers of control. Restrain, he reminds himself is a virtue. Ren sighs in exasperation, and then honestly thinks about the question.

Finding out how he feels is simple enough, his experience in meditation and natural tranquil disposition has made it simple to discern emotions. Grief. Anger. Regret. Intermingles with thousands of others, producing something indiscernible. Something painful.

It is articulating those emotions into words that is the problem. He takes a few more seconds to think of what to say, while Jaune waits patiently for his answer. It's always been one of the things he's admired about Jaune most, his almost unending patience. A consequence of growing up with seven sisters, he figures. He's always been good with Nora. It's what makes Ren respect him so much.

While Ren appears very tranquil on the surface, if you go deeper, you would find his mind to be a very chaotic place, and he only holds onto his calm facade by a hairsbreadth. He has an image to maintain after. Calm, cool. Nothing can shake him. He thought his facade impenetrable to anyone, at least until Nora becomes herself once more. Evidently, he was wrong.

"Terrible," he says honestly. He looks at Jaune for his reaction, but the other boy just keeps his face a perfect picture of neutrality, so Ren just continues on.

"I-" He stops to take a breath, and is surprised when his breath hitches. This is harder than he thought it would be, he laments, "I was never as close with her as you, or Nora, for that matter. But we weren't stranger by any means..." Something barely past acquaintances. Ren sometimes wonders if Pyrrha ever felt the same, if she saw him as more of a friend or less. And then he realizes that he'll never find out.

He takes another moment. Honestly, if he was his normal self then he would be disgusted with this blatant weakness. But that was the problem - wasn't it? He isn't his normal self. No one could be, after all of that.

No matter how much he tries to hide it, to bury it under mountains of fabricated excuses he cannot change the truth. He's shaken, caught flat-footed, and sent flat on his ass.

And he hates that. He really does. It's like he's that weak little kid that couldn't save anyone all over again. It makes him wonder if he'll falter again next time.

He feels a reassuring squeeze on his shoulder. His magenta eyes glance up to Jaune's cobalt ones and sees something in his leader's eyes, a message.

It's all okay, the message seems to say. You can trust me. And for a second Ren knows why Ozpin chooses Jaune and not him, Pyrrha, or even Nora to be JNPR's leader.

Ren smiles back at him, and unspoken thanks shine in his eyes. Jaune smiles back at him.

"You know..." Ren wants to share with his leader his grief. Not just about Pyrrha, or Beacon - but about Kuroyuri, about his parents, about how he met Nora. He is oh so tempted to. He knows that he can trust Jaune; his mouth almost speak the words for him on their own, but he keeps a lid on them.

Not yet.

But as Jaune holds his gaze, compassion and understanding and so much more shining in those blue eyes. Someone cares. _Someone_ cares. Ren knows that he _will_ share that grief with him. It won't be today, it won't be tomorrow. But someday soon.

And he's confident that Jaune will listen then as he's listening right now. No regard for his self. All compassion. All understanding. Not perfect, but something infinitely better than that: imperfect. Someone he can understand. A teammate. A friend. A brother.

Ren doesn't let go, his hands are still tightened around that same chain. Because he can't bear the thought of letting go. He can't bear the thought of forgetting lost lives and paralell roads. But some healthy color returns to his whitened knuckles.

"Thank you, Jaune."

Jaune looks a bit confused - Ren ever wonders if he will ever realize how inspiring he can be sometimes. Probably not, he's _Jaune_ after all -, but he smiles anyway.

"You're welcome."


End file.
